


A Birthday Party

by thealpacalypse



Series: George Squared Sleepover Fluff [1]
Category: Call Me Katie (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Kid Fic, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4588488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealpacalypse/pseuds/thealpacalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gleeson has a lot of friends, but he decides to only invite Bates to his birthday sleepover party. Bates feels very special because he's the "Chosen One". This party wouldn't be complete without Disney movies, a pillow fort and Bertie Bott's Beans of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Birthday Party

**Author's Note:**

> I promised it long ago, but here it is, finally - the first part of my George Squared sleepover series! I thank the lovely [Margret](http://rendolent.tumblr.com/) who has done a great job as my beta - any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> I also wanted to point out that I felt it was relevant to include Gleeson's disability in this story and I tried to be as respectful with it as I could - but please, if you notice anything that might be offensive in any way, please tell me and I'll correct it immediately.
> 
> This is the first of five (or maybe six?) sleepover fics that will all be about the Georges growing up together and being adorable and stuff, so if you liked this one, you might want to stay tuned for the other parts. ;) Enjoy!"

Bates gets dropped off at the Gleeson house for the first time on a Saturday afternoon in early winter. His mom is nervous, checks his backpack for the tenth time if he has everything he needs and asks again: “Are you sure I shouldn’t pick you up again later? It’s no problem, I’d totally understand if you don’t want to stay the night.” It’s all very embarrassing.

 

“Mom, I’m nine. I’m not a baby anymore. I’m fine.”

 

His mom still insists on bringing him to the door to say hello to Gleeson’s parents. Bates doesn’t wait for his mom though, he races past Mr. and Mrs. Gleeson shouting “Hi Mr. and Mrs. Gleeson!” and immediately runs over to Gleeson who is sitting on the sofa with a big dolphin plushie on his lap. “Happy Birthday, Georgie!” Bates exclaims and tackles Gleeson – Gleeson fights back of course, until they’re out of breath from laughing so hard.

 

“Hey, you made Sir Dolphin fall to the floor!” Gleeson scolds Bates, still grinning. Instantly Bates grabs the stuffed animal from the floor and inspects it more closely.

 

“Sir Dolphin?” he asks doubtingly. “That’s not really a cool name, is it?”

 

Gleeson nods and giggles. “It’s not his real name. I got him today from my Grandma, but I didn’t name him yet, I wanted to hear your ideas first.”

 

Bates’ face lights up. “Really? Wow, that’s cool!” It’s so cool that they need to high five.

 

From over at the door Bates hears Gleeson’s mom say: “Isn’t it great how our two Georges get along?”

 

When Bates’ mom only replies: “But you’ll call me if anything goes wrong?” Bates just rolls his eyes and mumbles to Gleeson: “My mom thinks I’ll get homesick over one night or something…” He’s really glad that Gleeson laughs at that like it’s the strangest thing; it reassures Bates how weird his mom is acting really.

 

They get up from the couch and head towards Gleeson’s room, but Bates’ mom isn’t done yet. She calls him over and then says: “You’ll be nice and behave, promise?” Bates rolls his eyes again and promises, before he grabs his backpack out of her hands, yells “Bye, mom!” and follows Gleeson to his room.

 

***

 

Bates is sure that Gleeson is the coolest friend he’s ever had – he’s so smart, he knows everything about dolphins and dinosaurs and he’s such a good swimmer _and_ he can do this really cool thing where he turns his legs around and uses them as an armrest. That’s literally as cool as it gets in Bates’ book.

 

Usually Bates likes to spend his time with as many people around him as possible, because like his dad always says: “The more the merrier,” but it’s totally different when Bates is with Gleeson. He wants to have Gleeson to himself, which is why he’s glad that he’s the only one invited to this birthday party. Gleeson has a lot of friends, but Bates is very proud that he and Gleeson have this kind of sworn brotherhood. He always wanted to be someone’s favourite person.

 

“I got you a super awesome present!” Bates exclaims excitedly and Gleeson laughs.

 

“Gee, you’re being very loud again.” Bates hasn’t noticed, but he’s sure Gleeson is right – he always gets too loud when he’s happy, and he’s very happy right now, he’s sure Gleeson will love his present.

 

“Sorry,” he still says and tries to keep his voice down a bit. “Wanna see your present now?”

 

It’s a Harry Potter towel and some Bertie Bott’s Beans and Gleeson loves it. He hugs Bates and then looks at the Beans more closely. “So are those normal Jelly Beans or do they really come in all flavours like in the books?”

 

Bates grins widely and replies: “Only one way to find out.”

 

***

 

The first one that Bates gets is gross, it tastes like grass and it takes everything not to spit it out again immediately – he _just_ insisted that no matter how those taste, they’re gonna eat them whole, so he really can’t back out now.

 

Apparently Bates pulls some amusing faces while trying to swallow this horrible thing, because Gleeson laughs when he looks at him. “I’ve got cherry, I think,” he explains smugly.

 

Bates frowns and grumbles: “Mine was grass,” when he finally manages to swallow the Bean.

 

“Okay, we’ll try again,” Bates decides. “But this time I’ll pick one for you and you one for me, yeah?” Bates thinks that justice should be restored, so he picks one that looks really disgusting, a bright green and brown one – Gleeson should suffer just like Bates did with his first Bean. The one Gleeson picks for him looks really harmless, a dark red like the cherry one Gleeson had before, so Bates expects the taste of cherry when he bites on it.

 

It’s cinnamon instead, and at first it’s not bad because it reminds him of Christmas, but then he has to spit it out after a few seconds, because it gets just too spicy. Gleeson’s is kiwi apparently. “This is so unfair!” Bates cries out and grabs one more in a soft white colour. This has _got_ to be marshmallow flavoured. Gleeson stares at Bates with anticipation. The moment the Bean touches Bates’ tongue, Bates realises he has made a mistake: It’s soap flavoured.

 

After that, Bates decides he has had enough of the Bertie Bott’s Beans for now. “So, what do we do next?” he asks. Gleeson beams at him. “I have everything planned perfectly – first we give Sir Dolphin a proper name, and then my parents order pizza for us. Later we build a pillow fort in the living room and we watch a movie.” Gleeson’s plans are always the best.

 

***

 

After a long discussion (“You should name the dolphin after me, I’m your best friend!” – “I can’t then I would also name him after me!”), they decide to call the dolphin Finn. “It’s a good name,” Gleeson states and Bates agrees happily.

 

“Because he’s a dol-Finn!” Bates thinks that’s hilarious, but Gleeson just rolls his eyes and says: “No, because I like the name. If I have a son one day, I will call him Finn as well.”

 

Bates isn’t convinced. “But then your dolphin and your son would have the same name, and that’s boring! Anyway, you’d have to marry a girl to get a son. I mean, girls are okay I guess, but I don’t think I want to marry one. Wouldn’t it be so much cooler to get a proper, real dolphin and call him Finn? You don’t have to marry anyone for that!”

 

Gleeson agrees, of course. A proper, real dolphin is pretty much cooler than anything.

 

***

 

They order pepperoni pizza with double cheese and while they’re waiting for the delivery they’re starting their pillow fort. It’s not the first pillow fort they’ve made, they’re already professionals at this, but this one needs to be better than any other they built before, because this time they want to sleep in it. Gleeson’s parents offer to help, but no, this is something Gleeson and Bates have to do on their own, they’re way too old now to get help for stuff like that. Just to be safe, Bates also writes a sign that says “no grown-ups allowed” and puts it on the door to the living room. Gleeson’s dad laughs, ruffles Bates’ hair and says: “Okay boys, we’ll stay out of your business.” Bates likes Gleeson’s mom and dad, they’re so much cooler and more relaxed than his own parents.

 

Never before has anyone built a pillow fort as amazing as this one, Bates decides. The table is their base frame, the chairs around it make up the walls. They put blankets over the table and chairs until there’s absolute darkness under the table, and then Gleeson brings his night light – an awesome one that looks like Buzz Lightyear and projects stars onto every surface. Then they take every pillow they can find and put it inside the fort, and also Finn and a bunch of other stuffed animals, as well as some card games and snacks.

 

Their pizza arrives the moment they’re done with everything and they crawl out of their fort and admire their work. Then Bates looks at Gleeson with a triumphant grin, Gleeson looks back at him and they high-five. “Best pillow fort ever!”

 

***

 

They bring the pizza into the fort, and also a laptop that belongs to Gleeson’s mom, so they can watch a movie inside of the pillow fort.

 

“So, I’ve got Toy Story and Brother Bear and Spider Man One and Two, and the Fantastic Four,” Gleeson explains. “What do you want to watch?” Bates thinks about it for a moment. They’ve already watched Toy Story a couple of times, but he doesn’t want to watch that tonight. Thinking about Spiderman and the Fantastic Four makes him nervous – he knows his parents would never let him watch those, he’s not old enough officially, but he also knows that Gleeson’s parents have no problems with that, because once they all watched the first Spiderman together, Gleeson and Bates and Gleeson’s parents. Bates doesn’t want to be nervous or scared about stuff like that, but he’s pretty sure that it wouldn’t do him much good to watch a movie like that right now. So he finally says: “I mean, Spiderman is awesome, but I’d rather watch Brother Bear right now. You’ve been singing the songs from that for weeks now and I really want to know what it’s about.” He probably shouldn’t have explained his choice that much, even to himself that sounds suspicious. But Gleeson doesn’t seem to notice.

 

But Brother Bear is definitely the right choice, Bates decides. He loves every minute of it, and when the songs come on and Gleeson sings along, Bates does his best to try and join him, even though he doesn’t know much of the lyrics. Bates isn’t very good at this, but it doesn’t matter, because he makes up for it with his enthusiasm.

 

Later, when it’s time to go to sleep, Bates grins at Gleeson through the bathroom mirror when they both brush their teeth. “I’m so full I think I’m going to explode tonight,” Bates claims. It seems very probable to him, he has eaten more pizza than ever before in his whole life, and also chocolate cake and cookies and gummy bears and some more of Bertie Bott’s Beans (he finally got some that weren’t too bad, apple and cotton candy and something that might have been pineapple, but he gave up again when he got a lemon flavoured one).

 

Gleeson laughs. “Don’t you dare to explode in our pillow fort! It’s too pretty for that!” And Bates laughs with him, because Gleeson’s laugh is always so infectious, but he also sticks out his tongue at Gleeson through his tooth gap, which makes Gleeson laugh even more.

 

***

 

When they return to the living room this time to go to sleep in their fort, Gleeson suddenly sits down on the floor in front of the fort and begins to take off his legs. Bates doesn’t want to stare, he really doesn’t, but he has never seen before how Gleeson does it and he really wants to know how this works. Gleeson catches him looking though and gets a strange look on his face, and Bates wonders if this is how Gleeson looks when he’s shy, because he has never seen that expression on his friend before.

 

“Sorry,” Bates immediately mumbles and stares at his own hands instead. He really hopes Gleeson isn’t mad at him now – he knows how much Gleeson hates people staring at his legs. But Gleeson doesn’t sound angry when he says: “No, it’s okay.” Bates isn’t sure though if Gleeson says that just to be nice, because Gleeson always does that. He still looks at his own hands when he repeats, “Sorry, Georgie, really. I know you don’t like that, I just…” He doesn’t know what to say and he’s afraid he just ruined the whole evening. He really doesn’t want to imagine the look on his mom’s face if he has to call her now to pick him up.

 

But then, out of the corner of his eye, Bates sees Gleeson moving towards him and he carefully looks up again to meet Gleeson’s gaze. Gleeson still doesn’t look angry or sad or anything like that; instead he smiles and Bates somehow knows that this smile is special. “Gee,” Gleeson begins, “I promise, it’s okay. Of course I don’t like people staring at me, but you’re my best friend.” Then he grins and continues: “You’ll have to get used to this –,“ he points at his stumps and wiggles them, “– because we’re gonna have a lot more sleepovers from now on. And also you promised earlier that one day we’ll move in together and get a real dolphin.”

 

Bates chuckles and slowly relaxes again. Gleeson is not mad at him, that’s the most important part of this. But the dolphin thing is probably just as important. “We’re definitely going to do that!” he exclaims and has to be shushed by Gleeson, because apparently he got carried away again by his excitement over that thought. And just like that, everything is all right again.

 

***

 

They stay awake longer than they probably should, endlessly talking and laughing in their pillow fort and pretending they’re not tired at all for at least one more hour. But when finally all of their energy is gone and they turn out the night light and make themselves comfortable in the mess of all the pillows and blankets around them, the excitement of all of this slowly fades away inside of Bates. He’s not a fan of darkness, even though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone – except for Gleeson maybe.

 

“It’s so dark in here I don’t even see my own hands, even though I’m holding them directly in front of my face. Can you see my hands? Or anything at all?” Bates mutters into the silence. Gleeson sounds confused: “Why would you want to see your hands?” But Bates doesn’t have an answer for this that isn’t embarrassing as hell, so instead he just replies: “No reason, I just wanted to test if I could see them. Man, we did a really good job with making it dark in here.”

 

There’s no answer to that from Gleeson, but Bates can hear how Gleeson sits up and moves around in the darkness, and suddenly the night light is on again and Bates is incredibly thankful for the stars that softly dance over Gleeson’s face.

 

“Let’s pretend we’re sleeping outside under the night sky, okay?” Gleeson smiles, and it’s that smile from before again, that special one that somehow feels important to Bates. He doesn’t know why, he just knows it is – special. Important.

 

“We should do that one day,” Bates grins. Now that he can see again, the tension in his chest slowly leaves and he returns to feeling rather comfortable in here. Gleeson grins back out of habit, but he seems confused as well. “Do what?”

 

“Sleeping outside.”

 

Gleeson throws a pillow at Bates’ face. “That’s stupid, we can’t sleep outside, it’s too dangerous!” He’s probably right, but Bates doesn’t want to give up this idea just yet. “We’ll see.” He throws the pillow back at Gleeson, but not really with force. Just now he notices how very tired he is really, and so he rolls into a ball, grabs a monkey plushie that’s called Mr. Bing for some reason and closes his eyes. “G’night, Georgie,” he mumbles, “and happy birthday again.”

 

He imagines Gleeson is smiling at him again when he replies: “Thanks. Good night, Gee.”


End file.
